Mrs. Woolf /Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Woolf /Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Woolf /Mrs. Dalloway

Mrs. Woolf /Mrs. Dalloway

Summary: Mrs. Woolf

Virginia’s sister Vanessa Bell shows up early for tea.
When she arrives, Virginia is in the study helping Leonard with
proofs. Caught off-guard, Virginia feels embarrassed that she is
not dressed better. Vanessa does not apologize for arriving early,
and Virginia believes that her sister has a normal way of relating
to the world that she feels incapable of mastering. Vanessa’s three
children—Julian, Quentin, and Angelica—play in the garden. They
have discovered a dying bird on the ground and have begun constructing
a bed of grass surrounded by roses for the bird. Angelica, who is
five, is in charge of making the grave bed. As soon as she lays
the bird in the grave, Angelica wanders off in search of the nest.

The children go inside, but Virginia remains in the garden
to think about the bird. She thinks that she would like to lie down
in the grave bed in the bird’s place. As she looks at the bird,
she realizes that her literary creation Clarissa should not kill
herself but should instead function as the symbolic bed of grass
in which death is lain.

Summary: Mrs. Dalloway

The doorbell rings as Clarissa Vaughn prepares for the
party that night for Richard. Louis, Richard’s former lover, surprises
Clarissa. The two have not seen each other for five years, and Louis
is immediately struck by how much older Clarissa looks. They reminisce about
the summer at Wellfleet, and Clarissa tells him that she wants her
ashes spread there when she dies. Louis responds that he hated her
that summer because he was jealous of her relationship with Richard.

Louis is now a drama teacher in San Francisco, and although
he wants to move back to New York, he has fallen in love with one
of his students. Clarissa thinks that Louis’s love affair with a
much younger student is ridiculous, but she envies the idea of being
with a new young lover. Louis suddenly tears up and admits that
he doesn’t love the student. Clarissa tries to comfort him as she
thinks about the fact that she and Sally have never fought. The
prospect of doomed love seems strangely attractive in the face of
the comfortable familiarity of her romance.

Clarissa’s daughter, Julia, shows up and greets Louis,
who makes his exit after promising to come to the party. As he leaves,
he remembers breaking up with Richard after a fight in a train station
in Rome. After storming away, he jumped on the first train he saw
and felt liberated by the experience of having no obligations or
commitments. He remembers that as he sat on that train bound for
Madrid, he could finally feel the happiness of his own soul.

Analysis

Vanessa has a casual confidence that draws attention to
Virginia’s anxiety. Though the two women are sisters, their personalities
are dramatically different. Vanessa’s assured manner makes Virginia’s obsessive
observation of the world seem oppressive by contrast. All of the
women in the book constantly evaluate every detail of the world
around them, but each knows another woman who doesn’t share her
powers of observation. In The Hours, the capacity
for intense scrutiny seems to be necessarily accompanied by feelings
of frustration and dissatisfaction. While Virginia, Clarissa, and
Laura sometimes feel overwhelmed by their experiences of the world around
them, Vanessa, Sally, and Kitty provide a contrast of confidence
and normalcy.